Clockwork Tsubasa
by Tonight's The Night
Summary: Three hundred years have passed since the human race abandoned their dying planet. Ever since that day, a hyper-intelligent automaton, Syaoran, has carried out his prime directive: to restore the earth to its former health. But when he makes contact with the first human to walk the Earth in centuries, the encounter raises questions about the real reason Syaoran was left behind.
1. Harsh Revelations

_Author's Notes:_

_Hello, everyone! These past two years, I've done a "gift fic" of sorts during the holiday season, where I've opened myself up to requests by reviewers. It's turned out to be a fun challenge, as well as a good way to open up to the TRC community. As you may have guessed, this fic is a direct result of that tradition. I wrote this story based on a prompt by Cinnamon-Romanji. The idea captured me right way (though I did end up changing a couple details to make it fit with the story that developed in my mind). Anyway, I'll probably be doing one or two more of these gift fics over the next few months, depending on whether I can develop any interesting plots based on the other requests. Guidelines for further requests can be found in chapter 142 of _Shatterheart, _if anyone out there is interested in submitting a request (if you're sending a request, please do so by submitting a review with that request for that particular chapter, just for the sake of organization). Thanks to everyone who submitted story ideas—I wish I could write them all, but I only have time for a couple fics, especially since I'm still in the process of finishing several fics that I've already started. I very much look forward to seeing what all of you think!_

* * *

Chapter One

"Begin activation process," Syaoran said, touching a stylus to the screen and sending a stream of data from his mind to the computer. It processed the complex burst of information in just under a tenth of a second, according to Syaoran's own processors, and if he'd had more practice mimicking human emotions, he might have sighed at the sluggish response.

The computer responded with a neutral voice. "Activating model number 226-B-18, Theta group; designation: agricultural restoration crew."

Syaoran wheeled his desk chair over to the off-white cabinet on the opposite wall, inputting the code with fingers that could type over ten-thousand words per minute, if he devoted all his processing power to forming coherent sentences without damaging his keyboard with the force of his typing. Of course, only the most advanced computers could process that much information, considering how many other tasks occupied them at any given time. His own brain was an exception—a developing processor that grew more intelligent with experience, a processor that rebuilt itself through experience the same way human brains restructured themselves in order to learn complex tasks like walking and speaking. Speech and mobility had been wired into his mind since his activation three centuries ago, before the last human colony had departed for the stars in order to escape their dying planet. Syaoran had been left here with the directive to restore the land, which, incidentally, meant that he'd been left in charge of a waste management center, building automatons to cleanse the poison from the land, air, and water.

The humans had been scheduled to come back fifty years ago. They'd never returned.

Still, his prime directive was to restore the world to its former health, and like all good Clockwork Automatons, he would perform his programmed function until his circuits degraded to such a degree that he could no longer obey that command.

All his musings took place within the quarter of a second it took for the doors of the medicine cabinet to slide open. Syaoran reached inside, grabbing one of the dermal patches and extricating it from its paper sheath. It was an emotion-patch, fit for use by both humans and emotionally-capable automatons. His last patch had expired four days ago—one of his precious Joy patches, and consequently, one of the few things that made him feel truly _alive_. The memory sent an echo of that emotion through his body, and with it, he felt a deep longing—almost an ache—for a more authentic version of Joy. He had only three patches left of the original eight-hundred. Finding a way to replace that emotion would be . . . difficult.

He discarded the expired Joy patch in the waste bin and selected a Motivation patch from the cabinet. He had more of those, since he only used them when his work became unbearably tedious. But he'd been building waste management drones to replace the last batch for close to two weeks now—each only lasted three months before deactivating, like all standard automatons. That Syaoran had outlived them all by many years was a function of his model type, not any special modification of his own. He'd been built to last.

"Unauthorized visitor at entrance twelve," the computer announced.

Syaoran took nearly a quarter of a second to process that. _Unauthorized visitor? _

Something—an echo of some forgotten emotion—pulsed through his heart. "Activate camera twelve," he said, returning to the command screen. An image of a man with spiky black hair and red eyes appeared on the screen, pacing in front of the doors. Syaoran didn't recognize him, which meant one of two things: Either he was another Clockwork Automaton, abandoned in the wasteland that the planet had become, or . . . or he was human.

"Open door twelve," Syaoran said, jabbing his stylus against the screen and transmitting the security code. On-screen, the man stopped pacing, staring at the door with a look of shock. Or, at least, Syaoran interpreted it as shock, according to the few memories he had of the human race before the Departure. As soon as the doors opened wide enough to admit the man's large frame, however, he entered the building.

"Anyone in here?" he called. Syaoran watched him for a moment, paging through hundreds of old files in his memory banks before deciding to greet the visitor personally, rather than watch him wander the halls. It was possible he'd come here on a scouting mission, to see if the planet was indeed habitable again. Syaoran felt a twinge of . . . something. Excitement? Wonder? Dread? It had been so long since he'd experienced any authentic emotion, and he'd never had an emotion-patch specific to any of those feelings, although Joy had some of the same chemical compounds as Excitement, which he hadn't been provided with.

It didn't take long for him to intercept the man. When he did, his visitor stepped back, reaching into his pocket to retrieve an item Syaoran's internal dictionary labeled as a plasma gun. "Human or robot?"

"Robot," he replied, wincing a little at the archaic term. In the days before the Departure, _robot _had become a derogatory term, rather than a technical one. For what reason, he didn't know, but perhaps human language had once again adopted the word as something neutral. "Are you a human?"

The man's eyes narrowed, though Syaoran's scans had already confirmed that he was, indeed, human. And even after centuries alone, his knowledge of human behavior and language patterns would have been sufficient to deduce which category this man belonged to. But his courtesy programs had prompted him to verbally confirm the man's species.

"Human," the man spat, his gun still pointed at Syaoran's chest. "And I can fry your circuits with this, so don't even think about attacking."

"Attacking is not part of my prime directive. I am the manager for this waste management plant. I ensure that the mass cleansing effort continues uninterrupted until the human race returns."

The man let out a sound halfway between a bark and a laugh. Syaoran cocked his head to the side to indicate confusion, but instead of acknowledging the gesture, the man muttered under his breath. "Waste management, huh?"

"That is correct."

"Well, I've got a new directive for you."

Syaoran leaned forward, and a rush of joy—real joy, not the synthetic compound that caused it—surged through his emotional network. "A new directive?"

"Yeah. Shut it all down."

The joy died in his circuits. He rocked back on his heels. "Shut it down?"

With a sneer, the man nodded. "Yeah, shut the whole thing down. Start with the automatons you've been sending out, then all the computers in this building, and then you can damn well shut yourself off, too."

He stood in place for a moment, certain he'd misunderstood. Humanity had tasked him with revitalizing the planet. That work was not nearly finished. In fact, only the land and water in the fifty miles surrounding the waste management center had been purged of pollutants. The air, free-flowing as it was, still contained dangerous amounts of toxins, and took up the bulk of the automatons' efforts. Though it was considerably cleaner than it had been, it had not yet been declared fit for humans, though it was apparently survivable, given his unexpected visitor's lack of extra breathing apparatuses. _I haven't completed my objective__, _he thought, staring at the human in front of him. _Why have I been ordered to shut the project down? _

Annoyance flared in the man's eyes. "Well, get on with it! Shut everything down."

"I . . ." _I must obey orders, _he thought. But his orders conflicted with one another. He'd been commanded to carry out his mission, yet he'd now received a counter-command which ordered him to end the program. None of his commands had ever conflicted to such an extent. And this new order unnerved him. To be shut down, never to be rebooted again . . . Or worse, to have his memory scrubbed clean so he could be reprogrammed.

_Machines must not become attached to life, _he told himself. His commanders had taught him that from the very beginning. Artificial life was insignificant compared to human desires. Above all, he was to obey any command given by a human. And yet . . . He didn't _want _to die.

"Are you even listening?" the man demanded. "Shut it down, I said!"

"Why?"

The question wiped the anger from the man's face, but moments later, it came back, more forcefully than before. "_Why?_"

"Your commands conflict with my primary directive. My programming indicates that I should consider the reason for this change before fulfilling that command."

The man's eyebrows pulled together, mouth twisting into a snarl. Syaoran's survival mechanisms had him shying away. "You're asking _why_?" The man's voice was soft, yet forceful.

"I must evaluate the reason for my new orders."

"The _reason _you need to be shut down is because you and your ilk have wrecked what little was left of this godforsaken planet, and I'm sick and tired of fighting off hostile robots."

_Hostile? _His dictionary defined the word instantly, and he understood the sentence, but it still didn't make sense to him. "May I ask which events have led you to believe that we are hostile?"

The man's arm whipped out, knuckles catching Syaoran's jaw. Pain registered in his sensory banks, spreading from the point of impact to his neck as the force of the blow threw him to the floor. _Warning, _a part of his brain alerted him. _Repeated exposure to forceful impacts can severely damage internal structures. __T__o prolong lifespan, __avoid situations where such damage may occur._

A stray thought about retaliating flashed through his mind, rejected almost instantly. Robots did not fight humans. That rule mattered above all else, even above fulfilling one's own duties. So instead he laid on the ground, curled up slightly to protect himself as the man kicked at his abdomen. Something nagged at the edge of his memories, but he lacked the intuition and insight so common to humankind, and even with his processors humming at maximum output, he could not identify a reason for his . . . anxiety? Uncertainty?

Even as he puzzled over the unidentified emotion, his processor gave him another alternative to lying curled up on the floor. "Please don't hurt me." He spoke softly, making his voice rise in pitch, mimicking the tone of fear. The man paused, leg pulled back, poised to kick. Slowly, he relaxed his leg, standing on both feet.

"What?"

"Please don't hurt me. My sensory system remains in tact. It is painful to be injured."

His statements seemed to confuse the man, and he studied his word choice once again. As with all programs, there had been some bugs in his speaking software. He'd thought everything had been patched up, but it had been centuries since he'd seen a human, and language was fluid. Perhaps the man considered his way of speaking archaic or difficult to understand.

"You feel pain?" the man finally asked.

His processor interpreted the question as a request for explanation. "Sensory software has been a part of automaton programming since the beginning of our development. In emotionally-capable models, it is connected to our empathy software, which moderates our actions and allows us to view situations from perspectives other than our own. To understand the pain of others, one must be capable of experiencing pain."

"Empathy software? You have _empathy software_?"

"It is standard in Clockwork models."

A long silence stretched between them. Syaoran concluded that the man had an outdated processor, to take so long to comprehend basic information. Then, with a sigh, the human spoke. "Ah, shit. You have no idea, do you?"

The odd statement had him looking up at the man, head cocked to the side. "I do not understand what you mean."

"You've got to have security cameras, right?"

"That is correct."

"Take me to the monitors."

_This _order, he could follow, and he did so eagerly, rising to his feet. Pain slithered across his face where he'd been struck, but it was fading quickly, being processed in background programs now that he'd brought something else to the forefront of his mind. Gesturing for the human to follow, he walked down the peripheral corridors, heading to the center of the facility, where the security monitors were located. He could access the footage at any time himself, but the monitors had been implemented during the time before the departure so that they could be viewed by humans. Syaoran didn't really understand why humans needed an extra device to view security footage when it could be streamed directly into their memory banks, but it was not his place to question humans; the most inferior human was still superior to him.

"This is the security center for the waste management plant," he said, inputting the code to open the door. "To what time do you wish to rewind the footage?"

"Two hours ago, as far out as the security footage goes."

Syaoran sent the information to the computer, and the monitors glowed to life. The man pushed past him, looming over the screens without ever completely taking his attention away from Syaoran. A line of tension had formed along his shoulders, and after a few minutes, he made a sound of annoyance. "Fast forward ten minutes."

Syaoran did, and for the first time, they saw movement on the screens as a man with sandy hair tied back in a ponytail walked into the view of the camera. _Another human, _Syaoran thought, amazed. Encountering one human had been exciting enough, but _two_?

Within seconds, one of the waste-management automatons Syaoran had built appeared from the other side of the screen. The sandy-haired man jumped back, grabbing a gun from the holster at his hip and aiming it at the automaton. He fired once, the bullet tearing through the chest of the humanoid machine. Syaoran flinched, wondering if this was why so few of his charges had reported in recently.

Then the automaton raised her arm, hand unhinging at the wrist to reveal a metal tube. And that was when she shot a plasma bullet into the man's heart.


	2. Painful Decisions

Chapter Two

The plasma bullet exploded as it struck the man's chest, producing a fireball that filled half the screen. Syaoran reeled back, horror rushing through his circuits. "Impossible. All automatons are programmed to value human life above all else. This is _not possible_."

"It _is _possible," said the spiky-haired man, rising from his seat. "That guy with the ponytail? His name was Shougo. He's dead now, because of the automatons _you've _been building."

_No, _Syaoran thought. _That can't be true. _"The automatons I have created function only as waste management drones," he said, but something in his emotional systems contradicted the statement. Something a human might have called "doubt."

A trace of that doubt must have come through in his voice, because the human merely crossed his arms and snorted. "Right. Waste management."

"That was my purpose. To build waste management drones and to maintain this facility so that I could construct more automatons. This is a malfunction."

"Is it?" the man sneered. "Because having a 'waste management' automaton with a gun for an arm is one hell of a strange malfunction."

"This . . ." He trailed off, his brain processing the new information. One of his automatons had killed a human—an affront to everything he had been programmed to believe. He would be justified in shutting off that automaton, and he intended to. But the gun built into its arm presented another problem, one that it took his processor the entirety of two-point-four seconds to work through. Guns were weapons. Killing was their only function. Automatons did not need to hunt to survive, nor did they need to defend themselves from harm, as they were not truly alive.

So why had his programming led him to affix a gun to one of his creations? Why had no part of his mind questioned the addition? Was it because it had always been this way? He reviewed his explicit memory and noted that he had used the same parts to build this automaton that he had used in every other automaton he'd created since the Departure. Which meant he had been specifically programmed to overlook the oddity. _Why? Why did I never question this before?_

Slowly, he walked over to the control panel, shutting off the monitors to preserve power. The spiky-haired man stiffened when he drew near, then straightened his back, stepping out of Syaoran's path. "Well?"

"I will shut down the facility," Syaoran said. An unfamiliar emotion pulsed through him, sapping his will to perform his usual functions. He was not programmed, specifically, to drag his feet when he walked, and he did not do so now, but he couldn't help but think he ought to.

The spiky-haired man followed him. "Wait a second. That's _it_? You're really going to do it?"

"Of course. We must never cause harm to a human, lest we betray everything we are programmed to believe." His voice sounded flat, devoid of all feeling. It sounded less human than it ever had. "To do so is to put our own desires above our masters. That is unacceptable. Therefore, I will shut down this facility and all the active automatons." He turned away from the human and began walking back to the control room, programming his course into his autopilot feature and reducing the amount of processing power devoted to conscious thought. The resulting numbness of mind made it easier to follow his programmed course to the control room, where all surviving automatons constructed in this facility, including himself, could be shut down.

* * *

Kurogane followed the robot through the halls, not quite believing his own ears. _This has to be a trick, _he thought, fingertips brushing against the plasma gun at his hip. It was a Ginryuu .007, one of the highest caliber plasma guns available to the public; it had been top of the line technology in the days leading up to the Departure. That had been three centuries ago, and he'd been in cryo-sleep here on Earth in the interim, but it was still a damned good gun, and if he had to shoot his way out of here, he could.

The robot shuffled through the halls, every step exactly the same length, its body making precise, ninety-degree turns when necessary. Kurogane followed, always leaving a couple meters between them. No sense getting close to it when he could shoot it just as easily from a distance.

The thing gave no indication that it was aware of his caution, or his willingness to use Ginryuu as needed. It gave no indication that it wanted to live at all, anymore, though Kurogane was still a bit unsettled over the "sensory system" it had mentioned. The thing had outright admitted it could feel pain, and while that should have eased the tension in Kurogane's gut, it only made him more wary of deception. After all, what kind of weapon-building robot would be programmed to feel pain—or have "empathy software," as this one claimed to? _Some empathy, _he thought bitterly, thinking of what he'd seen on the monitors. _Making war machines and pretending to have emotions. What bullshit. _

The robot—he had to struggle not to think of it as a boy, for it could easily pass as one except for its stilted way of speaking—paused outside a door to input a security code, then stepped inside, never looking back, never giving any indication he was about to attack. Kurogane didn't buy it for a second. "This is the primary control room. We'll be able to deactivate all automatons generated in this facility from here."

Kurogane raised an eyebrow, finger twitching beside Ginryuu's trigger. "_We?_"

The boy—the _robot_, Kurogane reminded himself fiercely—nodded. "My particular programming prohibits me from deactivating myself. I can only be shut down by a human." He—_it—_looked down, shoulders sagging. "The only conclusion I can draw from that knowledge is that the people who programmed me intended to have me continue fulfilling my objective even if I realized the truth. They added this feature so that I could not commit suicide upon finding out that I had caused the death of humans."

Kurogane stiffened, then forced his fingers to unfurl before he could accidentally squeeze the trigger of his gun and put a plasma bullet in his foot. "Suicide?" he repeated.

The boy glanced back at him, fatigue carved into every line of his face. "I'm afraid my language software has not been updated since before the Departure. Is suicide no longer the proper term for when a being self-terminates?"

"It's . . . No, that's . . ." _Damn__, it actually thinks it's alive. _"It's the right word," he finally said, running a hand through his hair. "If you're alive, anyway."

The boy regarded him for a moment, then walked over to the desk chair in front of the main interface. The seat cushion had a deep indent, and Kurogane wondered how often the kid—_robot, he's a robot, don't forget that—_left this room, if he ever did.

"You can access the main controls from this page," the robot said, sliding the chair to the left so Kurogane could see the screens. "You'll need to go through this page to deactivate me, once I've shut down all the others." Without any further hesitation, he brushed his fingers across the screen, opening a pull-down menu that led him to a page with a few simple controls. "All you'll have to do is tap this icon, and the computer will ask you if you want to erase my memories. Once you click 'yes,' I will revert to my factory settings."

Suspicion stirred in his chest. "And what _are _your factory settings?" _Bet he goes on a murder spree. Fucking robots._

"I will go into sleep mode to await reprogramming," the robot said simply. "Once I am in sleep mode, I can also be shut down."

"That's it?"

The boy nodded. "That is all. In sleep mode, I will not move, nor will I process any sensory information, unless I am reprogrammed to do so. With no memories, it is the same as being dead."

Kurogane could only see a small sliver of his face, as they were both facing the screen, but he thought he saw the kid's eyes tighten as he deactivated the rest of the automatons.

"Alternatively, you can click _this _icon to shut me down permanently." He indicated a red circle with a vertical line cutting through the top—quite obviously a power button. "Standard automatons can be restarted after being shut down, so it would be wise to modify their programming to avoid any further tragedies if you intend to use them further. I . . . I am not certain if I would have been able to notice anything in their programming that would account for their violent behavior. I have likely been programmed to overlook such details."

"You said standard automatons could be restarted. But you're not _standard_, are you? You can't be, if you have empathy software."

The boy raised his eyebrows, as if Kurogane's conclusion surprised him somehow. "That is correct. I belong to a class of artificially intelligent machines known as Clockwork Automatons. We do not need to be reactivated every three months like standard automatons do, and though we can be rebooted from sleep mode, we cannot be restarted after we are shut down. We just die. Permanently." He rose from the chair, turning to face Kurogane. "As I said, I cannot self-terminate. I would very much appreciate it if you would shut me down."

Contempt stirred in Kurogane's chest. _How pathetic, _he thought. _He's practically got a life already and he wants to throw it away over something programmed into hi__m__. _His teeth ground together. What kind of sick bastard would build a thinking, feeling automaton, then program it to create war machines? It would've been so much better, so much more _efficient_, to make such a thing automatic, without the ability to feel remorse, but whoever had created the kid had done so knowing that the moment he discovered the real reason for his construction, he would want to kill himself. It was sick. Wrong.

"The rest of the machines are shut down?" he confirmed, watching the humanoid outlines on the screen turn from green to gray.

"Yes." The boy turned toward him. "I am ready to die."

Kurogane stared at him for a long moment, then gestured for him to get out of the way. Obediently, the robot stepped off to the side, his hands at his sides, his expression empty except for the lines of worry around his eyes that Kurogane didn't think he was aware of. With a sigh, he sat down in front of the screen, tapping through the controls the kid had shown him. As he hit the button to wipe the robot's memories, a window popped up in the middle of the screen, and a pleasant, monotone voice came from the speakers. "Warning: This model can not be restarted after being shut down. Do you still wish to continue?"

_Just do it, _Kurogane told himself. _He deserves it. _Taking a breath, he moved his hand toward the screen.


	3. The Land Where Wildflowers Grow

Chapter Three

Kurogane's finger hovered over the "shut down" button for almost thirty seconds. Then he let his hand drop into his lap and stood. "Fuck it," he muttered.

The robot looked in his direction, cocking his head to the side like a cocker spaniel. "Is something wrong?"

"It's—You . . ." Air hissed through his teeth. "Goddammit, you have a life. You could pretend to _be _human, if you actually used that brain of yours. Why would you throw that away?"

The boy blinked. "My programming . . ."

"You've still got a mind of your own, right? You've got learning software, and now you know what's been going on. You must know a lot about machines if you can build automatons. You've got to be smart enough to fix your own damn programming. So what's the fucking problem?"

"I . . ." He paused for so long that Kurogane began to wonder if some sort of fuse had blown in his brain. "I want to die," he finally said, shoulders slumping. "I've done something horrible, and I deserve to die."

"Bullshit. Someone _programmed _you to do all that, so stop acting like it's all your fault."

"But it _is _my fault!" Pain—genuine, heart-wrenching pain—echoed in every word. Kurogane took a reflexive step back, hand going to his gun. "I _had _a choice," the boy went on, seemingly unaware of the weapon in Kurogane's hand. "I had directives, commands, programming, but I also had _choices_. I _chose _not to look more in-depth at my own programming. I _chose _to accept that everything my creators built into me was ethical. I _chose _to follow my orders without question. But I didn't _have _to. That's why Clockwork Automatons are built with sophisticated AIs. So that we have a choice whether we want to continue following orders or to do as humans have always done and create our own paths in the world. I . . . I could have quit." The last words came softly, like the hush after a heavy snowfall.

"You could have quit," Kurogane agreed. "And if you really _can _resist your programming, you should be able to shut yourself down. But you won't, because you're not brave enough to do it yourself. You want to take the easy route and have me do it for you."

Silence. Then the boy nodded. "That is correct."

"Then you don't _deserve _to make that choice," Kurogane growled. "You don't _get _to run away from what you've done."

"Please," the boy whispered. "Please shut me down."

Anger burned away the last trace of pity that had wormed its way into his mind. "No. You fucked up. _You_ fix it."

"I already shut down the rest of the automatons. What more can I do?"

"I don't fucking know. Make amends. Save lives. Who gives a shit? Just . . . Stop being so goddamn selfish." _There, _he thought viciously, feeling a rush of triumph when the boy flinched. He turned away, striding toward the door, hoping he'd be able to find his way out of this place so he could get back to the camp. When he heard footsteps behind him, he spun, grabbing Ginryuu from its holster and flicking the safety off as he aimed it at the robot's chest.

The boy paused mid-step, then lifted his head, standing a little taller. "There are others with you? Other humans?" He said it as if he didn't dare hope. Kurogane's eyes narrowed as he wondered how the robot had figured that out. Then he remembered that the boy had been in the room with the monitors, had seen one of his own creations shoot and kill a human. It was only natural for him to assume there could be others.

"Yeah, what of it?"

"It's just that . . . you said that I should make amends. Does that not necessitate that I perform acts of kindness for the people I have hurt?"

_It's got to be a trap, _Kurogane thought, not lowering his gun. _He's been lying this whole time—he wants to infiltrate the __camp__._ "Believe me, you wouldn't survive ten seconds with them once they find out what you are."

"If I could have the opportunity, I would stand trial for my crimes."

His spine stiffened. "Trial? They'll have you _executed_. And that's assuming they don't shoot you on site! Why would you want a trial?"

"Am I required to answer that?"

Frustration surged through his chest. "Yes, you're _required _to answer that."

The boy nodded. "If the members of your group choose to have me executed, that is their prerogative. I have, after all, committed acts that have harmed their community, and I deserve to be punished. Do you not agree that it would be more just for me to be condemned by a third party than to request your help in my self-termination?"

"That . . . doesn't make any sense. You _know _they're going to have you executed, so—" His teeth came together with a loud _click_. "You know what? Screw it. Fine. We'll put you on trial. If you want to throw your life away so badly, it's not my problem."

A perverse look of relief brightened the kid's expression. "Thank you."

_I can't believe he's thanking me for bringing him to his execution, _he thought, disgusted. He tucked Ginryuu back in its holster and gestured to the door. "Let's get this over with, then. I've got better things to do. Walk."

Nodding, the boy started forward, his movements less mechanical than they'd been on their way in. Maybe he really _was _looking forward to his execution. _Whatever. It's not my problem. _His fingertips brushed against Ginryuu's grip. When the rest of his group decided to have the robot blown up or shut down or whatever, no doubt Kurogane would be the one elected to dole out the punishment. _Making me do the dirty work. __Bunch of spineless—_

"You never mentioned your name."

He glanced up, fingers closing around Ginryuu's grip before he slowly unfurled them. "Does it really matter?"

The kid glanced back at him, then looked away. "You are the first human I have encountered in over three hundred years. I am curious."

"The name's Kurogane," he said. "Yours?"

"My original designation was 'Small Wolf, model 81821, alpha group.'"

Kurogane rolled his eyes. "You got a real name? Or am I expected to remember _that_?"

"My human coworkers took to calling me Syaoran before they left."

He acknowledged the statement with a grunt and kept walking. As they reached the exterior doors, the boy paused to type a code into the number pad. The doors parted with the screech of warped metal. "Miracle that door even opens," Kurogane grumbled, rubbing his fingers over one ear without moving his other hand away from his gun. "How do you listen to that all the time?"

"I do not use that door."

"What door _do _you use then?" he demanded, annoyed with the robot's evasiveness.

"I do not use any of the exterior doors. I have not left the facility since the Departure."

It took a minute for that to sink in. The kid hadn't walked out of this little building even _once_ in the past three hundred years? Not even to check the "progress" of his automatons? Kurogane studied him for a minute, though that seemed rather pointless, since any robot could be programmed to lie with such subtlety and precision that he'd never have been able to distinguish falsehood from truth. For all he knew, the kid had calculated the series of lies most likely to make him let his guard down ever since he'd been detected outside the building.

Worse, it was working. What the boy said might or might not have been the truth, but Kurogane couldn't deny the sense of injustice he'd felt at the thought of someone, even a robot, working alone for three centuries without any human interaction. It made him wonder how the kid had kept himself from going mad. _Don't be an idiot, _he told himself. _He's a robot. He can't go mad. __He's not even alive, for god's sake. _"We're going that way," he said, pointing north. The boy nodded without ever looking at him and angled his course slightly. They would actually go to a rendezvous point first, away from the main camp. Kurogane hadn't _expected _to find anyone on his trip to the facility, but you never knew when you were going to run into another group of survivors, and he wouldn't have dared lead a bunch of strangers to their base without first consulting with Shougo and Kamui. Of course, Shougo was _dead _now, so they'd have to elect a new leader once he got back. But the point still stood.

For the first mile of their trek, the grass under their feet was lush. A few hardy sprouts poked through the ground, sporting pale buds that would open up into wildflowers. Whatever else had been going on at the facility, at least _some _of it had involved restoring the planet to a healthier state. But as they went on, the grass began to look limp, even yellowing in some places from acid rain. The ground had been cleared of litter, and the lack of clutter made the land feel desolate. He could see a giant mound of trash on the horizon, a tower of humanity's detritus. Old furniture, countless bags of garbage, decaying machines . . . Kurogane wouldn't have been surprised to find animal carcasses or even human bones in that pile. The robots didn't bury their dead, either; he saw several automatons, their torsos riddled with holes from his own plasma gun. Those who hadn't been carted away to the trash pile sat in pieces amidst patches of greenery as cold, metal husks that could no longer move, let alone kill.

One other object—also metal, but about as far from an automaton as you could get—sat in the distance, undisturbed despite almost two hours of sitting in place: a car built from scrap metal, old engine parts, and a few things his group had scavenged from buildings that had been constructed to last until the Return. It had no windows and few of the comforts he remembered from the time before he'd gone into cryo-sleep, but in the year since he'd woken up, he'd grown accustomed to living without those old world conveniences.

"You know how to drive, kid?"

"No."

_Great. _"You got any weapons on you?"

"_No_," the boy said, sounding shocked. "Clockwork Automatons are taught never to pick up a weapon. What use would we have for something that—"

"Yeah, okay, fine. Didn't figure you'd have any." The thought of _anyone _wandering around here without so much as a pocketknife grated on his sensibilities, but he could hardly complain when the person in question was a robot who'd spent the last three centuries building weapons to wipe out the last humans on Earth. "I'll drive," he said when they reached the car. "You sit in the passenger seat and stay still until I tell you to get out."

The boy obeyed, seeming almost eager to please him. Artificial intelligence or not, he obviously had trouble with the concept of disobedience. Assuming he was telling the truth. Assuming he wouldn't produce a cannon from his body and shoot Kurogane before he could drive them to the rendezvous point. _Damn, this is going to be a long trip, _he thought, turning the key in the ignition.


End file.
